whose French descent and sympathies may be inferred from their names. Antony Benezet was not one, but here were Jacob Duche, and Thomas Say, and Abraham De Normandie, and Samuel Lefevre. There is nothing like a disruption of families hinted at. It was to continue in force twelve months, and no longer.
What exactly was done, or attempted under this act, there is no means of knowing. Down to July of this year, when Governor Denny arrived, upwards of 1 200 £ had been spent in their support, and this too, although there were difficulties created by the exiles themselves, who, though willing to be supported as objects of charity, evidently thought — for this is the fair construction of their recorded conduct — that by refusing to work they would force a recognition of their rights as prisoners of war, and as such be entitled to be exchanged or sent back to France. One cannot blame them for this sort of contumacy, and yet it made the duty of kindness and protection not an easy one. Governor Morris, who seems to have been an especial victim of he Gallophobia of his time, took his farewell of his function by letters to Lord Loudoun, the new Governor General, and to Sir Charles Hardy, filled with alarms as to French spies and Papal influence. If any one now a days, afflicted with a fear of Romanistic or Foreign influences, will look back to the terrors of a century ago, he may, if capable of any rational process, learn a salutary lesson. « By means », writes Governor Morris, on 5th July, 1756, « of the Roman Catholicks who are allowed in this and the neighboring Province of Maryland, the free exercises of their Religion, and therein the other privileges of English Freemen, the French may be made acquainted with the steps taken against them, as from the head of Shesapeak Bay the roads thro’ this Province to Potomic are open and much travelled, especially by Germans, who have a large settlement at Frederick town in Maryland, a frontier place near Kittochttny Hills ; none are examined who pass that way. » To which Sir Charles, the Governor of New York, promptly replies : — « I am inclined to think the Treasonable correspondence must have been carried on by some Roman Catholicks, and I have heard you have an Ingenious Jesuit in Philadelphia ! » (Archives, 690, 694.) Let me here pause and ask which, now a days, seems most preposterous — Frederick town, in Maryland, being a frontier town, or an American Governor being afraid of a Jesuit ! And yet both were so one hundred years ago.
On the 27th of August, and on the 2d of September, the Neutrals addressed, in person, earnest and pathetic memorials both to the Assembly and the Executive Concil. A candid examination of these papers, written with great eloquence and precision, satisfies me that they were meant not merely to tell their tale of actual sorrow, but to use, as I have already hinted, their sufferings as an argument for restoration to liberty, or their return to Europe. The two ideas are always closely interwoven. « We humbly pray, » they say to the Assembly, « that you would extend your goodness so far as to give us leave to
